Wednesday, October 20, 2010

It’s so easy and self-explanatory, I refuse to give you a tutorial. Because, honestly, that would just be a huge insult to your intelligence. Even if you haven’t seen one before, I know you can figure it out. You wrap the ribbon around the wreath form and tie it in a knot. I made mine nice and messy, with the knots at all different spots around the base and the ribbons overlapping. Voila. BUT, I felt like it might be missing something. And I WILL show you how to make just exactly WHAT it was missing. Which are spiders.

Because I wanted to keep with the whole feeling of the wreath, I decided the spiders needed to be made out of ribbon. I started with the scraps.

And pulled out several black ribbons I liked.

Start by making a loop about the size you want the spider to end up,

and trim the ribbon.

Then lay it out,

And cut two more pieces of ribbon, each just shorter than the one before.

Begin the spider with the shortest ribbon. Loop it around and use hot glue to secure the ends. (wow. I need a manicure.)

Dab hot glue on the ends,

press the next larger ribbon down and loop it around, securing the other end with a bit more glue.

Dab more glue on the ends.

And loop the longest ribbon around.

This is your spider body.

Now we need a head. There are two different ways you can do this:

First, take a strip of ribbon and lay it across the point of the body where all the ribbons are connected.

Wrap it around at least once to measure how long you need it to be.

Dab some hot glue on the back of the point of the body.

Press down the end of the “head” ribbon.

Now, holding your index finger on the point of the body, wrap the “head” ribbon around both your finger and the point.

Glue it down on the back side.

It’s a head!

You can also take a small strip of ribbon and glue the end to the back so the ribbon is coming off the FRONT of the spider. Then curl it up and back and glue it down where it connects to the body.

For the legs, use skinny ribbon. Cut 8 strips of ribbon of equal length. (yes, that’s right, I had to remind myself that arachnids have 8 legs, not 6). (in my opinion, this is actually what makes them creepy.) You can always trim them shorter if you need to.

Now take your skinny ribbon and dab glue on one end,

and tuck it into the spider body. Press the ribbon down on the INSIDE of the largest body piece, toward the bottom of the ribbon.

Do this four times on each side.

You can trim the legs and leave them as is or,

you can add a bit of hot glue to the middle of each leg on the bottom, then squeeze the leg where the glue is to make a joint.

Creepy.

And creepier.

I kind of love mr. houndstooth here. He's so stylish.

But this guy? He's the scariest one. I think because he remind me of the huge tarantula living on the ceiling in our cabana on the beach in Mexico during our honeymoon - whom we nicknamed Jorge, El Stupendo. I was terrified that he would eat me.

Now, lay your spiders out in your wreath to get an idea of where you’d like them to hang.

Take some silver embroidery floss

and cut enough pieces for your spiders. Then tie the ends of each piece together in a knot. Make sure they are the correct length for how low you want your spiders to hang.

Loop them around the wreath and tuck this part into the ribbon so it’s concealed.

Use hot glue to secure the knots to the underside of the back of the largest part of each spider body. (um, yes. That sentence wasn’t confusing OR convoluted.) (thank goodness for pictures).

Now, loop a longer piece of embroidery floss around the top of the wreath.

Glue on the huge mother of all spiders (EEK!).

Hang it on the door.

Of course, you don't HAVE to make them into a wreath. They're pretty versatile little creatures. I think they would make an adorable garland. Just glue them along an extra long length of ribbon, or even sew through them in a big long line so the thread makes the garland. Or how about putting that handsome houndstooth on a little pin? Just the right amount of creepy crawly...

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